


Human Trade

by LitGal



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Dom/sub, Dominance, F/M, Femdom, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-24 17:09:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitGal/pseuds/LitGal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John would do anything to save his people, even if it required trading in human flesh—just as long as the flesh in question was his own and not anyone else’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Atlantis in Trouble

Not a Good Day

 

John paced the control room. He hated these situations. “Maybe you could…”

“Working!” Rodney snapped. John closed his mouth and looked over at Colonel Carter. Other than a sympathetic look, she didn’t react.

“Aw crap,” Rodney whispered, and then his fingers flew over the keyboard.

“Rodney?” Carter moved closer and looked over his shoulder.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he snapped. Carter took one look at the screen before she sat at the computer next to Rodney and started typing.

“Would someone like to explain to the rest of the class?” With Carter running the city, it was like Rodney never felt the need to stop and explain anything, but with twelve members of Atlantis gone already, John wouldn’t mind a few bullet points, a quick summary, hell, at this point, he’d settle for one of Rodney’s Powerpoints.

Carter answered while Rodney madly typed. Zelenka had fallen into soft Czech curses, which was never a good sign. “The beam is going more than testing our shields. Every time it finds a microbreech, a secondary beam is used to transport people off Atlantis.”

“What? Whoever is attacking us has Asgard technology?” John really hated this universe sometimes.

“Different energy signature,” McKay said. “Sam…”

“I got it,” Sam said, turning her attention to the computer.

Ronon had been sitting on the stairs, but now he stood. “I thought the Gate only worked one way. If they’re beaming in energy to attack us, how can they transport our people the other way?”

“If I knew that, I would be halfway to stopping them!” Rodney’s voice rose into dangerously shrill territory.

“Could they be transporting them to the mainland?” John asked.

“Oh yes. Yes, they’re attacking us only to send us on a vacation to the mainland.” Rodney swiveled around in his chair. “Of course. Why hadn’t I considered that? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because that’s the stupidest idea ever?”

“Rodney!” Carter called, and they did that weird scientific mind meld thing again because Rodney swung back around and started typing again.

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“We can’t keep this up forever,” Carter said.

John was almost sure that was a very bad thing. Very bad. Of course, no one was talking to him, so he wasn’t entirely sure what type of very bad, but he knew the sound of panicking scientists, and it was never pretty.

“We just need to keep it up for thirty-eight minutes.”

“Twenty-three,” Carter corrected him, “and I’m not sure we can keep it up even that long without losing more people. Chuck, get ready to dial the Gate the second the wormhole disengages,” Carter ordered one of the techs.

“To where?”

“Does it matter?” McKay demanded before Colonel Carter suggested in a kinder tone that any destination with a friendly population would work. And that seemed to be the end of the conversation.

 

 

Desperate Escape Attempt Number Three

John clenched his fists as he watched one of the new arrivals head for the jumper bay. “I should pilot it,” he argued for the fourth time. If someone was going to try and escape the beam using jumpers to escape to the mainland, it should be him.

He didn’t like sending a lieutenant on a mission that everyone seemed to think was too dangerous for him. The beam was too effective at creating microbreeches, and if Rodney couldn’t adjust the jumper’s shields fast enough, it would penetrate the weaker shields and the pilot would vanish like every other person caught in the transporter beam. At this point, John would rather be one of those who did vanish. Maybe if he was on the other end of whatever was taking his people, he could fight instead of standing around twittling his thumbs.

“John, you can take the next jumper,” Carter promised. It was an empty promise. Either this plan worked, and the other flights wouldn’t be in danger or the pilot was going to vanish in that transporter beam and there wouldn't be any more flights.

John pressed his lips together and watched as the computers tracked the jumper as it rose up, still under the protection of the city shield.

“Jumper one, hold until we get the shield controls calibrated,” Carter ordered.

“Jumper one holding.”

Radek spoke up. “Rodney, you have to do this quickly. With only two of us manually reinforcing city shields, this beam is…”

“Yes, yes, yes. Stop wasting my time with the obvious,” Rodney snapped. Colonel Carter didn’t even try and smooth things over, and Radek went back to his quiet muttering, but after fourteen hours of unrelenting attack, all the scientists were looking ragged.

They were all scrambling to either find and reinforce the microbreeches before any more people could be beamed away or they were trying to strengthen the shield overall or they were running through lists of increasingly ridiculous escape plans.

“Rodney?” Carter asked.

“Okay, okay, I’m ready.”

Carter opened a comm channel. “Jumper one, you have a go. Good luck.”

“Thank you, colonel. Jumper one heading out.”

John held his breath, watching on the sensors as Lieutenant Kesler rose up toward the shield.

“Approaching shield, jumper shields on maximum.

The puddle jumper rose and immediately, the sound of the laser blasts against shield ended. For fourteen hours, the laser had randomly targeted spots on the shield, slamming against Atlantis like a high powered hail storm. At least that’s how Carter had described it. Now it went suddenly silent.

“Sam!” Rodney cried out, and that was his ‘aw shit’ voice, the one that made the hairs on the back on John’s neck stand on end because something truly fucked up was about to happen.

“I’m trying,” Carter answered, her fingers flying across the keyboard. John knew even before the life sign vanished that the plan had failed. They couldn’t dial out fast enough to stop the attack at the end of the 38 minute window. They couldn’t reconfigure shields, and apparently they couldn’t run like hell with their tails between their legs. Options were getting limited, and Lieutenant Kesler became the forty-seventh person kidnapped right out of Atlantis. John was starting to think Ronan had it right—the wraith were better enemies because they showed up so you could shoot them.

“Okay, that didn’t work,” John said. For one moment, Rodney’s face twisted with horror, and then he turned his eyes back to his laptop.

Carter gave him a dirty look, but honestly, John hadn’t meant to poke Rodney. He knew Rodney was doing his best. “What I meant was, is there another option, could we put two shields on a jumper?”

Both Carter and Rodney gave him such incredulous looks that John was fairly sure he’d just said something stupid.

“A small ship creates a small target, and more intense storm of laser strikes over a smaller area. It wouldn’t work. I don’t— I don’t know what to do. I can’t—” Rodney leaped up from the chair, despair written in his hunched shoulders and the downturned corner of his mouth, and there wasn’t a damn thing John could do to.

 

 

From the Frying Pan

"We have a ship hailing us," Rodney said.

John had been half dozing as he leaned against the wall, but he sprang up. "Is it the Daedalus?"

"That's so stupid that I'm not even answering it," Rodney said. At another time, John would have said something snarky back, but they were all too tired. Colonel Carter had taken a few hours to sleep, but Rodney was pushing himself so hard that he was going to crash soon, and it wasn't going to be pretty.

"Okay, who is it?" John asked.

"Crap, crap, crap." Rodney turned all his attention to his computer screens, but two seconds later, his shoulders slumped in defeat and a wave of guilt swept across his expression.

"We lost three people," Craig said as he manned the controls on the other side of the room.

"Yes, I have eyes. Thank you for stating the obvious." Rodney seemed to shake free of the guilt. "We have a signal coming through. Clark, take this. I'm busy."

John gave Craig an apologetic look, but he didn't even seem to registered Rodney's mistake.

"We have a signal coming through. It's from an Aurora class ship."

"Oh god. Tell me it's not the replicators," Rodney said.

"Rodney, there are no more replicators," John said gently.

"Oh. Right." For a second, Rodney looked bewildered. But then he focused on his attention back on the sensors he had pointed at his shield.

"Should I put the signal on?" Craig asked. John glanced over to see Colonel Carter coming out of her office, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. When Rodney crashed, she'd have to take over and she didn't look rested enough to handle the complex math on the fly.

"Go ahead," John said, answering for Carter since he didn't have time to bring her up to speed.

The signal came through immediately, the clarity almost startling, but then this ship had compatible systems. The woman on the screen smiled. "John. We meet again."

"Larrin," John said, his voice flat. The traveler woman might have helped them a few times, but John didn’t exactly trust her. She had mercenary down to an art.

“John. You do get yourself in the strangest problems.” The woman had the nerve to look amused, and John really would have shot her if she’d been standing in front of him.

“Colonel?” Carter asked as she zipped up her uniform and stepped up to the screen.

“Colonel Carter, this is Commander Larrin, one of the Travelers.”

Larrin’s smile was just as predatory as the last time John had seen it. “We caught a communication burst aimed at one of your Earth ships, and my technician thought he recognized coding for an emergency.”

“Yes, well we are under attack right now. Any help you could offer would be appreciated,” Carter said. John glanced over. What sort of help did she expect Larrin to give? Even if she would put her people and her ship at risk, she couldn’t stop the attack.

“What sort of help are you looking for?”

Before Carter could answer, Rodney jumped up from his chair, his fingers clicking. “A larger ship has a larger area, and the ancient shields would give them more time.”

“Rodney!” Carter shouted, but one of the other scientists had already slid into his seat and was searching for the next microbreech. Rodney blinked and looked around as if dazed. Yep. That was the edge of his human limit. “We could use the jumpers to ferry people up, and if she had her ship right up next to the shield, the jumper could go from the protection of the city to the protection of the ship’s shields without ever being exposed,” Rodney finished. Some young technician John didn’t know caught Rodney by the shoulder’s and guided him over to an empty chair.

“Evacuate the city of the ancients?” Larrin leaned forward in her chair. “You are in trouble.”

“You have no idea,” Rodney said quietly.

“And you have no idea if this plan of yours would put my ship in danger,” she shot right back. “Give me one good reason why I should put me and mine at risk to evacuate your city.”

Carter turned to face Larrin, and John came to the sudden realization that this galaxy had entirely too many scary women. A wraith queen probably wouldn’t want to get in the middle of the staring match Carter and Larrin were having. “I’ll give you over three hundred good reasons,” Carter eventually said. “We have civilians down here… scientists. And we have the very pilots and soldiers who fought to protect this universe from the replicators.”

“You fought them because they were a danger to you as well,” Larrin said, “not that I don’t appreciate that you did an excellent job. However, this universe is poor, and trade is the only way my people survive. What do you have to trade?”

Carter looked over at John.

“I’d say offer them fresh food. What they have up there isn’t anything to write home about.”

“Done,” Carter said. “We’ll bring all food stores onboard. Anything we don’t eat is yours to keep.”

“Seriously?” Larrin leaned back in the chair and shook her head. “I know you’re not seriously asking my ship to risk hundreds of lives in return for some food. That doesn’t seem fair. What I would like to have is a ZPM.”

Rodney was on his feet again. “Great! We give you that, the laser rips through the city and the beam kidnaps all of us, and then exactly what is there to save?” he demanded.

Larrin frowned. “You have a point, although as long as the laser attack stopped, I would still get my ZPM.”

Rodney opened his mouth, probably to say something very inappropriate, but Carter stepped to the side so that she blocked their ability to see each other through the camera and monitor. “Perhaps we can make another trade,” Carter said. “We have a naqueda generator, or you could have some help with your systems. However long it takes us to get to the nearest safe world with a stargate, Rodney and I would be happy to help you with any repairs or upgrades to your systems.”

“So, three days labor in return for risking my ship and going out of my way to ferry you around? No deal.”

Carter’s temper snapped. “Oh come on, you can’t be serious.”

“She exposed her own people to killer radiation just to force me to surrender,” John pointed out. “She lacks one or two social graces, but she has seriousness in abundance.” Oddly, that earned him an amused smile from Larrin.

“Perhaps you do have something else to trade.”

“What?” Carter asked, and John could see her temper just under the surface. Carter was like him—they both were always willing to put their own necks out to help others. The very thought of standing by while others were attacked… it went against their nature.

Larrin leaned forward, which gave John a rather uncomfortably close view of her cleavage. “John.”

“What?” John asked when she didn’t continue.

“You can trade me John,” Larrin clarified. The silence in the control tower was absolute.

“Excuse me?” Carter finally asked.

“As a captive, he was a bit of a pain in the ass,” Larrin said with a shrug. “Maybe if he gives me his freedom in return for his people’s lives, he’ll be a little more tractable.”

“You think I’d be tractable?” John demanded. “ Okay, I’m sorry, but have you lost your mind? I’m not tractable for my own people. I’ve been threatened with court martials and dishonorable discharges so much that I’m surprised every day that I don’t wake up behind bars. I don’t think owning me is going to really make anyone very happy.”

“Okay, then we can leave.” Larrin raised her hand to give her crew a signal.

“You wouldn’t,” Carter said, and from the tone, she really believed that. She believed that Larrin had to be bluffing because no one would leave people behind to die. Unfortunately, John knew better.

“She would,” he said.

Again, Larrin gave him one of those smiles. “I’ll give you some time to think about it.”

“You’ll ferry all my people safely?” John demanded before Larrin could sign off. Carter was looking at him like he was insane now, but John had lost too many good people to that beam. He’d lost Lorne. He wouldn’t sit still and let some unseen enemy take the rest of his people, not if he could help it.

“Surrender yourself completely, and I will transport all the people you can get into my ship before my shields drop to fifty percent,” Larrin countered.

“Ten percent.”

“Twenty, and I really won’t go lower than that,” Larrin said, and from her expression, he believed her.

Carter interrupted before he could answer. “We’ll get back to you on that offer.” She gave Craig a signal and he cut Larrin off mid-smirk.

Him for the safety of all the people of Atlantis. John knew they would never get a better deal, but from the look of shocked indignation on Colonel Carter’s face, John was going to have to do some fast talking to get her to listen.


	2. Chapter 2

John approached the top of the city shield, his guts tight with anticipation, although at this point, he wasn’t sure what was most likely to give him an ulcer first—the thought that this might fail and he’d get beamed away or the idea that it would work and he’d be turning himself over to Larrin. Both were a little unsettling.

“Approaching city shield,” John announced.

“Shield at maximum,” Rodney answered, “but John…”

“I’m not having this argument again,” John said, cutting Rodney off. John had his own issues, and he couldn’t deal with Rodney’s guilt. Not now. Besides, if there were any other way, Rodney would have found it. John knew that.

“I’m bringing the ship down as close as I can get,” Larrin said. “We’re starting to take fire.”

“Compensating,” Rodney said over the comm. “Oh. Well that’s unexpected, although I guess I should have expected it. I mean, the ship is ancient.”

“Rodney?” John asked. It amazing him how many words Rodney would use without ever managing to say anything useful.

“The ship. It can come right through our shields, which makes sense because the same engineers designed both.”

“Great.” Now John didn’t have to worry about passing from one shield to another. He was definitely going to reach Larrin’s ship, which normally wouldn’t be a big problem. He was oddly okay with how often the woman seemed to tie him up, but he preferred to have an exit strategy. After the attack on the replicators when he’d still been on her ship, he knew she’d manufactured that equipment failure that forced him to stay with her for several hours. Having her tease him about not letting him leave had been exciting. Too exciting.

But there wouldn’t be an escape strategy this time.

“I’m in position,” Larrin said. “We actually fit very nicely under your shields, so take your time.”

“Or don’t take your time because we’re still under attack!” Rodney said, his voice devolving into a shriek at the end.

“I’m hurrying,” John reassured him.

“Jumper bay doors opening,” Larrin said. “Feel free to park wherever you like.”

John cleared his throat, but he didn’t comment. Colonel Carter really needed to be more careful about how she phrased things because Larrin was definitely laying claim to everything John was bringing up, including the jumper. But more arguing led to more time lost and more people transported away. Atlantis could afford to lose another jumper. John wasn’t losing any more people.

“I’m heading in now. This time, maybe you can avoid threatening to throw me out the airlock,” John suggested.

“Now why would I damage my own property?” Larrin asked with far too much amusement in her voice. John didn’t have an answer for that, so he concentrated on parking the jumper in the very back of the bay. He really didn’t want to think of himself as property. It was doing very odd things to his libido and his ego, and they were two rather contradictory feelings.

Normally, this sort of confusion sent him running the other way. He wasn’t big on introspection or feelings or anything that bordered on interpersonal relationships. However, his people weren’t going to die because he was having trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that he was surrendering to Larrin.

Surrendering.

That probably wasn’t the right word. People who surrendered were prisoners. Prisoners had an obligation to attempt to escape. Actually, John had a lot of experience with being a prisoner. This was actually more like being a slave.

And that was the word he’d been trying to avoid.

Unsuccessfully.

Maybe he should go for boy toy. Then again, maybe Larrin didn’t even plan on using him sexually, which would actually be a disappointment, but John had flirted to get his way often enough that he recognized that same behavior in her. She flirted and danced around him, probably hoping his cock would lead him to do something stupid. Maybe he was just going to be an ATA gene toy. That really didn’t have the same ring to it.

“Docking complete,” John said. He was on autopilot more than the ship. Now came the hard part, and he really didn’t have time to dick around with personal feelings.

“Colonel Sheppard, good luck,” Carter offered.

“Yeah, thanks. Sheppard out,” John said before turning off his radio. He didn’t need to make this any harder. Right. Property. Larrin’s property. He could do this.

John stood up, his hand going to his thigh to rest on his gun, only he didn’t have a gun. Ignoring the cold sinking feeling in his guts, he maneuvered between the boxes of foodstuffs Atlantis had sent and triggered the back doors.

“Whoa. Hey, what happened to not damaging property?” John asked as he faced dozens of armed soldiers. With no way to defend himself, he raised his hands in surrender.

Larrin stepped forward. “I don’t know. Are you mine, John? You didn’t come up here with some ridiculous plan to overpower my people and take control of a ship powerful enough to evacuate your people, did you?”

“What? No.” John tried to sound indignant, but it was hard because that had been one of the various plans Carter had put forward. Unfortunately, John knew Larrin well enough to know that she’d kill all of them and half her own crew to defend her ship.

“Then come on down,” Larrin said.

John clenched his teeth and walked toward all the guns pointed at his head. It was a little uncomfortable. Larrin tossed something, and John caught it by instinct before he even realized what he had. They were manacles. Ancient manacles were thick with a solid bar between them, and John knew from experience they were a bitch to get out of.

“Cuff yourself,” Larrin ordered.

Every instinct in John’s body screamed at him to fight. He didn’t even take orders from commanding officers when he really disagreed with them, and he definitely disagreed with this order. But this is what he signed up for.

He put one half around his left wrist and clicked it shut before starting to do the same with his right.

“No,” Larrin stopped him. “Behind your back.”

John pressed his lips together, but he put his hands behind his back and felt around until he could lock the second half around his right wrist. “Okay, what now?”

“Turn around and walk backwards,” Larrin ordered him. This was supposed to be him surrendering, but it was feeling a whole lot more like getting captured. Still, John turned around and walked backwards until he felt a hand grab the center bar on the cuffs. Larrin. He could smell her. Feel her body behind his. And that was definitely a lot of confusion stirring around in his gut. Fear, sure. But he was a long friend to fear. They hung out and had beers. This was fear, but it was definitely more. He was so screwed.

“On your knees,” Larrin ordered.

“It’s a little hard with you holding my cuffs,” John pointed out.

He felt a hard gun muzzle press into his left side. “Try,” she suggested.

“You know, if it weren’t for the fact that I agreed to this trade, I’d be really complaining right now,” John said as he tried to kneel. She kept her hold on the cuffs so he ended up awkwardly dropping far too hard onto the metal deck plates, and even then he had to bend forward with his head toward the ground to take the pressure off his shoulders.

“Funny, that sounds like a complaint.”

“Nah. Ask Rodney to demonstrate what complaining sounds like. Or actually, don’t. I like him in one piece, and he has verbal torture down to an artform. You'd shoot him.”

She pulled up on the cuffs a little more, and John grunted as he was forced to bend farther down, his arms behind him at a painful angle. “Check the jumper,” she ordered, and several sets of footsteps started running across the deck.

“Larrin, please. You promised to let my people in. I held up my end of the bargain. You have to let the other jumpers start bringing people up,” John said. He was trying to stay calm, to keep his attitude under control, at least until the Atlantis expedition was somewhere safe, but it was hard when she was being a cold stone bitch. Worse, she was being logical. She knew them well enough to expect the trick, which was exactly why he’d argued rather vehemently against trying one.

“You expect me to believe you don’t have backup plans? You expect me to believe that your people will just turn you over?”

“Well, I’m here, and they’re out there waiting, so yeah, I do expect you to believe it.”

“It’s clear. All systems are powered down.” Someone reported.

“The boxes?” Larrin pulled on the cuffs again, and John groaned, but he really couldn’t do anything more to get the pressure off his shoulders.

“Food. It’s all food.”

“Satisfied?” John asked.

“No.” Larrin charged her stun weapon. He could hear the whine of the poorly maintained power source.

“Then shoot me and get it over with, or dislocate both my shoulders. I belong to you so you can do that now, and I’m not going to try to stop you, but save my people, damn it. That’s our deal.” John could feel panic rise up like bile, and he was a half second away from attacking her, even if he’d be dead inside a minute and he knew it.

Suddenly, the pressure on his shoulders eased up. “Open the hanger doors. One jumper at a time, all guests and their cargo escorted to storage three,” Larrin ordered.

“Yes, ma’am,” a number of voices answered, and then footsteps rang as people scrambled to carry out her ordered. Say what you want about her, she ran a tight ship. The stunner made a little chirp that John really hoped was a power down order.

Without warning, she released his arms, and he let them drop to the small of his back, his shoulders immediately aching as blood rushed back into overstrained joints. When she walked around to the side, John angled his head to look at her. She crouched down, one of her hands resting on John’s shoulder.

“So, are you really mine, John?”

He swallowed even though his mouth was dry. “Save my people, and it’s a fair trade. I’m yours,” he agreed.

She smiled as she reached out to run fingers over his jaw, and John just closed his eyes. He really couldn’t deal with tenderness right now. The nearly dislocated shoulders had been the kinder gesture.

“The trade is more than fair,” Larrin said. “However, I don’t think your people will handle it well if they see you on your knees. Let’s get you out of here and set up in some quarters,” she said. She stood and got a hand under his arm to help him up.

“Quarters or a cell?”

“Both have a bed. Does it really matter to you which you’re in?”

John got his feet under him and heaved himself up despite the bruised kneecaps. A cell had bars and locks, but he’d already agreed to take her orders, so locks didn’t really matter at this point. “No, I guess it doesn’t,” he said as he gave one last fond thought for his quarters on Atlantis. He’d never stand at his window and see the spires or practice his golf swing off the terraces or see his Johnny Cash poster. Yeah, there were things he’d miss more… people he’d miss more. But right now he was only allowing himself to mourn the room.

Larrin turned and gestured toward a corridor, and John turned his back on his jumper and started into Larrin’s ship.


End file.
